updated 01:20 pm EST, Wed December 10, 2008

Touchscreen Wind at CES

MSI will be demonstrating new touchscreen-enabled notebooks during January's Consumer Electronics Show, says the company's US sales director. Andy Tung notes that 10- and 16-inch touchscreen portables will be on display, the former of which should be a Wind netbook. It is uncertain if it will become a commercial product, says Tung, as a 10-inch screen may be considered too small for tablet functionality; it is confirmed however that MSI's touch-based Wind desktops will be coming to the US in 17-, 19- and 22-inch sizes.

Also slated to be released in the US are the more conventional U100 and U120 Wind netbooks, the primary difference being the addition of WiMAX and 3G connectivity to the latter. The U110 and U115 should ship towards the end of January, equipped with Atom Z530 processors. The latter sports an SSD drive in addition to a convention hard disk, and can save power by switching off the latter. A maximum 10 hours of battery life should be possible.

Another CES debut will be the aluminum, 13.3-inch U300. Though not a Wind system, the computer should extremely thin and light, according to Tung, and unusually cheap for an ultraportable notebook, less than $2,000. This may position the system as a direct competitor to Apple's MacBook Air, or the Toshiba R600.